Week 4 Leaderboard - ETF Global Portfolio Challenge

March 18, 2017 - The first month of the Spring 2017 ETF Global® Portfolio Challenge has come to a close in what was a period marked by frequent change atop our leaderboard.  As our investors continue to vie for the top performing portfolio, let’s take a moment to examine the students who are currently in the lead and the portfolio selections that have propelled them to the top of the competition:

Spring 2017 ETFG Portfolio Challenge Top 10 – through 3/17

	Name	School	Return
1	Steven Barber	Rochester Institute of Tech	18.16%
2	Catherine St. Clair	St. John Fisher College	15.57%
3	Ethan O’Donnell	St. John Fisher College	15.53%
4	Phat Huynh	St. John Fisher College	14.49%
5	Dan Dang	St. John Fisher College	10.80%
6	Vlad Shevtsov	University of Georgia	10.15%
7	Rania Aghoutane	ESSEC Business School	8.55%
8	Miguel Afonso	Nova School of Bus and Econ	8.29%
9	Sagar Jain Prabhakar	University of Manitoba	7.54%
10	Michael Usherovich	Wilfrid Laurier University	7.06%

St. John Fisher College continues to be well represented in our leaderboard, as they currently feature 4 students in our top 5! We also have a new leader this week, with Steven Barber from RIT vaulting from 7^th place last week to 1^st overall. Attesting to the intensely competitive nature of the challenge thus far, we also have 5 new entrants in our top 10 this week. Of those 5 students new to the leaderboard, Vlad Shevtsov from University of Georgia, Rania Aghoutane from ESSEC, and Miguel Afonso from Nova School of Business and Economics, and Sagar Jain Prabhakar from University of Manitoba are the first contestants from their respective schools to place in the top 10 so far.

Outperformance amongst our leaders this week was largely driven by bullish wagers on precious metal ETPs. While a Federal Reserve interest rate hike was almost universally expected, the cautious tone taken by the fed helped spur a rally in precious metals, like gold and silver. Positions in ETPs such as Direxion Daily Junior Gold Miners Index Bull 3X Shares (JNUG), Direxion Daily Gold Miners Index Bull 3x Shares (NUGT), VelocityShares 3x Long Silver ETN (USLV), and VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) were common holdings by our leaders and helped fuel their returns. Paradoxically, the fed rate hike was also followed by a rally in emerging market stocks. Investments in emerging market ETPs, including the Direxion Daily MSCI India Bull 3X Shares (INDL) and Direxion Daily Russia Bull 3x Shares (RUSL), helped our leaders capitalize on this momentum. Lastly, as US housing starts rose to a near-decade high, positions in the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) served as another key source of return.

With 6 weeks left the Spring 2017 ETF Global Portfolio Challenge, there will surely be more change to occur at the top of our leaderboard.   We will continue to keep you updated as the challenge progresses!

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